


Common Knowledge

by idelthoughts



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet Ending, F/F, Fairy Tale Elements, Loneliness, Magic, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Pining, Self-Acceptance, Self-Doubt, Sexual Tension, So Many Meaningful Looks, Soul Sex, Tenderness, Vestigial Plot Elements, Vulnerability, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28849635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/pseuds/idelthoughts
Summary: How hard could it be to steal a book from a library, a place thatallowedyou to take books?
Relationships: Female Librarian in a Quaint Fantasy Town/Female Thief Who is Trying to Steal a Tome
Comments: 13
Kudos: 20
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Common Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mytha/gifts).



> Thank you, my dear Chocolate Box recipient. It's been an age since I wrote original fiction, but your prompts and tropes inspired me! I hope you enjoy this tale of thieves, librarians, and love in a quaint ~~medieval English~~ totally original fantasy town.
> 
> Many thanks to my lovely beta [LadySilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilver), who has been a one-woman marching band cheering me on to write after a long hiatus. She deserves all the credit for this story seeing the light of day.

Stealing a book from a library in a sleepy valley town was possibly the easiest job Rhi had ever accepted. How hard could it be to steal a book from a place that _allowed_ you to take books? It wasn’t even really stealing; she was being hired to both take the book _and_ bring it back.

She’d said as much to her employer, but had quickly shut her mouth when he narrowed his eyes and an eerie, unpleasant itch rose on the back of her neck, like a knife edge scraping along her spine. He’d nodded in satisfaction when she’d said no more, only that she accepted the job. Everyone was entitled to their secrets, and the why of it was not her concern. She needed money, and fast and easy money was her favourite kind. Take the book, bring him the book, return the book. 

Rhi was going to a library for the first time in her life.

She crossed the valley town’s crowded cobblestoned square with ease, weaving through the knots of people gathered for evening bells. It was a common provincial tradition to socialize at workday’s end, and this little community was no different. The townspeople chattered away in the last waning rays of the day’s autumn sunshine, trading gossip along with food for their evening meals, ensuring that everyone would eat tonight, no matter their station.

Vegetables, breads, and even meats and cheeses change hands; this was a prosperous little valley town with plenty of food to keep them all fat and happy. A far cry from the nearby mountains, where the harvest was already done and evening bells were short so that people could hurry out of the biting night wind.

Rhi wove through the crowd without incident, until she nearly received the back of someone’s hand to her face when their vigorous story-telling sent their pinwheeling arm in her path. The man and his companions did not so much as glance her way as she dodged and passed them. They remained as unaffected by her presence as the rest of the town. 

The squat and sprawling library building was nestled up against the central square, and was ensconced by leafy bushes with vine-like branches that swept the low tiled roof. They covered the windows, like fingers reaching up from the earth to pull the building down and drag it under the ground. No one had cut them back in decades. There would be no entry other than through the cleared front door. No matter; they wouldn’t give her a second look once the door closed again.

She pushed open the heavy wooden doors and left the day’s light, momentarily blind in the darkened domain of the library.

Rhi hadn’t even taken a full step before her eyes was dazzled by a handful of golden pinpricks of light. They zipped toward her with such speed that it was as if they’d materialized around her. The spinning blaze whirled around her before flashing away again.

She blinked hard to rid herself of the lingering imprint of light trails across her vision willing her eyes to adjust.

A large table dominated the main room, at the nexus of five rooms that sprouted off like the points of a star. At the table sat a woman, surrounded by flittering tiny golden sparks of light that spun around her. Some settled onto her hair and disappeared into her thick black curls, which shimmered like a swirling, sparkling night sky, while others sprung free and disappeared in different directions around the room.

She looked up when Rhi entered, and gave her a bemused smile.

“Welcome,” the woman said. “I’m the librarian. May I help you?”

It took Rhi a handful of seconds to realize the woman was speaking to her, and looking at her. _Directly_ at her.

Rhi spun on her heel and flung herself out the door.

Soul sprites. The librarian had _soul sprites_. She would see _everything._

Rhi thumped onto a bench in the bustling town square next to a clutch of braying young men who teased and jostled one another like a litter of lanky pups. They paid her no mind as she took a fruit from one of the baskets laying at their feet. She bit into it and slurped to catch the sweet juice, which gushed from the perfectly ripe flesh in a perversely irritating reminder of the valley town’s prosperity.

She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees as she ate.

So much for an easy job.

Rhi’s gifts made her a good thief. Being able to slip past people’s notice had all kinds of perks—such as the ability to walk away from a bad job. A little bit of concentration and people’s attention flowed over her presence without gaining traction, like water over glass. Her abilities made a thieves’ life simple and straight-forward. No need to pay for a meal or a room when she stopped for rest, or to give her name to the local law when they demanded to know the intentions of the stranger drifting through their town. And at the end of the job, no unpleasant _thanks, but no thanks_ conversations, no fists in lieu of coins when her patron decided she wasn’t worth what she charged; only a smooth exit whenever she chose.

So far, her face and name were unknown. She was perfectly satisfied to travel alone, to keep quiet, and to leave quickly when she was done. Only people with employment for thieves knew of her, and none of them wanted to draw the law’s eye any more than she did. Going unnoticed meant being a quiet, uninteresting shadow in the corner of peoples’ eyes, not a wanted thief. You couldn’t hide in plain sight from someone who sought you out.

Rhi threw the remaining fruit pit into a bush behind her and wiped her hands on the sides of her trousers. That jumped-up little lordling who’d hired her must have known about the librarian. No wonder he’d offered so much for a supposedly simple job. The price wasn’t just for the book; this was meant to bribe her into giving her face away to someone who, by the very nature, would never forget it.

She wasn’t a fool. She should leave now.

But, she needed the coin. She’d made too many early exits these last few months; too many jobs gone wrong, or not ended in the payday she’d expected.

Rhi drew her cloak closed against the chill of the waning evening and sized up the library building again.

This was barely stealing. She would bring the book _back_. What did it matter if one single woman knew her face, no matter how long her memory might be? Rhi was eminently forgettable, even when in plain sight. She would be one more unremarkable person among many people seeking knowledge at the library.

Her employer _must_ want more than to merely read the book, or why bother with involving her? What if the librarian noticed something amiss with the book after its return? She would suspect Rhi immediately. What if the change was obvious, and Rhi was implicated on the spot? Rhi had no skills to know if a book was altered, and would not be able to avoid an obvious trap.

Rhi stamped her feet in irritation before she stood, drawing a sidelong look from one of the young man. She gathered her concentration and gave him a purposeful and directed mental push, and he went back to his conversation. He did not look at her again, even when she snatched another piece of fruit from the basket. She carefully wrapped it in a waxed cloth and put it into her cloak pocket.

Whatever the risks, they were too minor. They did not outweigh her need.

Once the job was done, Rhi wouldn’t stop here again. She could plan out her travels to avoid this place, despite it being the sole resting point on the long journey home to the mountains. A librarian was unlikely to take up hunting petty criminals for sport, so aside from being unwelcome within the town walls, she would be fine.

Resolved, she approached the library once more.

The librarian was handing a book to an old man opposite her when Rhi entered.

A golden light flashed in the corner of her vision. A few nearby sprites meandered closer to her and hovering in the air as though watching her. Rhi’s entrance had been noticed, and her impact would grow the longer she delayed. She steeled herself as she approached the desk.

She hadn’t put her rusty grifting skills to use since she was a child, back when her fledgeling abilities were patchy at best, and wide eyes and sob stories were the only protection she could muster. She had taken whatever she could get away with, mulishly breaking the rules her family tried to teach her, begging forgiveness from the baker when she was caught at stealing treats that tempted her empty belly beyond resistance.

Rhi approached the desk as the elderly patron was taking his leave. He had his book clutched to his chest like a treasure he himself had just stolen, and bustled towards her with unlikely speed for one so stooped and weathered. Rhi had to hop aside to clear his path, which was fixed on the exit behind her.

“Toma?” The librarian’s voice was soft, but her gently admonishing tone carried with crystal clarity through the space, as though her soul sparks carried her voice and gifted it to all who were near. “Watch your step, love.”

The old man, Toma, blinked owlishly as he turned to look back at the librarian. White tufts of hair sprouted from his ears and made him look like a comical child’s toy. He gave a little start when he saw Rhi only two paces from him. He offered her a flustered bow, but he was so hunched that it was just a quivering nod of his bald head.

“Apologies, Miss. Didn’t see you there.”

Rhi awkwardly returned the polite bow, and muttered an acknowledgement that was more grunt than words. It bothered her more than she cared to admit that it was second-nature to slip from view without even intending to do so.

A month ago, when she’d travelled back to the high mountains of home for the harvest time, she’d spent an evening sulking on the edges of the festivities as she was systematically ignored by long-unseen friends. She’d brooded until her grandmother had delivered a sharp jab in the side and admonished her to quit pushing so hard, or she would make even her own family forget her. Not that it worked that way—her whole family had the knack, and you couldn’t influence another with the same skill. And it was nearly impossible to make a person completely forget you. And _certainly_ not your family. Or at least, she didn’t think so. But when Rhi had concentrated and relaxed, and tried her best to meet their gazes and say hello, the friends she’d known greeted and acknowledged her with pleasant, welcoming words. As the evening wore on, they soon forgot about her again. There was nothing to notice, even when she let them see her.

A sprite spun in the air near them, like a seed caught in a breath of wind. The old man, Toma, shied back from it. He forgot about Rhi once again and turned to hurry away. The door thumped closed after his exit, leaving Rhi alone to face her challenge.

Rhi forced herself to walk to the centre table. She pasted a smile on her face, trying for friendly and casual, but by the librarian’s bemused expression it must have looked as awkward and unnatural as it felt.

“Welcome back, friend. Is there something you seek?”

“A book,” Rhi’s voice cracked, dusty from disuse. She’d only spoken a handful of words since leaving home weeks ago, and even then she wasn’t given much to talking.

The librarian’s expression did not change, but the myriad sprites nestled in her black hair shimmered and rippled.

“Ah, a book. Yes, we have those.”

Some of the drifting sprites settled on the crook of the librarian’s elbow, and on the table where she rested her clasped hands, like lazy cats watching the interplay. It was oddly like being laughed at. Rhi’s cheeks grew hot. She wished she could shrink into her cloak and truly disappear, but the librarian’s gaze was fixed upon her, taking in every ounce of her squirming silence.

This was unlike the fun larks of her childhood misadventures, when consequences meant little and she overflowed with naive confidence. Outwitting the grumpy, sweaty baker was nothing like facing this elegant, self-possessed woman who shone like gold.

“Perhaps you can narrow it down?” the librarian prompted.

“I need to see the Clan Trees.”

Upon discovering Rhi’s ignorance, the lord had explained with great distain that types of books were grouped together. All she had to do was find the area. 

“Any particular—”

“I’ll find it myself.”

The librarian paused, and all the sprites around her paused with her. The momentary blip underlined their constant, living movement, as though they all breathed with the librarian, and held their breath when she did. It made perfect sense, given that they were part of her—another reminder that the librarian’s senses extended far beyond her physical body.

Rhi flushed and ducked her chin into the cloak’s cowl. She was doing a shit job at going unnoticed.

“Very well. I usually close the doors after the finish of evening bells, but there is some time yet.” A note of weariness coloured the reply, but her expression was warm. She gestured to her left, and a sprite lifted from her hand and hovered at her fingertips. “I’ll guide you, then leave you to your search.”

Rhi followed the little sprite as it wove a path away from the table and the librarian in the direction she had indicated. It bobbed at chest height, moving at a comfortable walking speed, pausing at turns amongst the tall shelves of books to make sure that Rhi did not get lost, or lose it amongst the other sprites.

The sprites filled the space, which contained more books than Rhi thought possible to exist in the world, let alone one little town. Sprites flitted about the lines of shelved books, hovered over open pages of books spread upon tables that dotted the stacks, and clustered around books piled on the floor to waist-height. They collaborated to lift and push books into their place upon the shelves, which she had not known was possible—she’d always thought them ephemeral creatures, thoughts given shape and light, without the ability to affect the physical world.

The deeper she went into the building, which was much larger than it looked from the outside, the more the air grew close and muffled, like she was wrapped in a blanket. Inside the silence, on the very edge of her hearing, she thought she could make out a warm, sweet hum; it was a melody drifting from afar on the wind, so distant as to be pure imagination. It was the sprites, the invisible song of the librarian’s thoughts as these little pieces of her soul enacted her will, like a hive dancing around their queen.

There were legends that if you listened to it for too long, it would entrance you. You would be transformed and trapped forever, enslaved as a sparkling cog in the impossibly vast mind of the sprite master.

Perhaps it was why the librarian did not join her people outside for evening bells, and why old Toma had fled in such haste. People loved to fear what they didn’t understand.

There were many stories about Rhi’s own kind, too. Such stories had chased her family from the valley into the mountains. Up there, only united communities survived the harsh winters. They were happy to welcome her back each time she presented the spoils of her work, no matter how small the take, no matter the provenance. Imaginary tales and morality did not outweigh reality; they would embrace the offerings of any able body who contributed more than they took. 

The little sprite stopped in the middle of a corridor. It spun a little tight circle between the two shelves, then zipped towards her, skimming over her shoulder, and flashed out of sight. She was alone amongst the books, finally.

Rhi fumbled inside her cloak for the small satchel at her side. From amongst the few necessary items she carried, she pulled a slip of parchment she’d been given.

She ran her finger over the slashes and circles of ink, silently moving her lips in correspondence with the shapes that represented each sound in the name. Satisfied that she had the picture in her mind, she bent close to the books to begin the search.

With growing despair, she scanned for a match amongst the shiny lettering stamped into the dark leathery book spines. The boxy, tidy letters bore only a passing resemblance to the sweeping and elegant hand-drawn lines on the parchment. It was like trying to find one particular blade of grass in a meadow, with only a child’s painting for reference.

Rhi crouched down into a squat. She’d thought she would have plenty of time, ignored and forgotten amongst the books. With the librarian waiting on her to leave, this was an impossible task. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers hard against her lids until she saw stars, pushing back the sharp sting of frustrated tears. 

After a moment of slow breathing, she opened her eyes. Her vision resolved upon a little sprite, which bobbed before her face. She shot up onto her feet, clutching the parchment. The sprite rose with her and hovered at chest height. It swirled in a tight circle, as before.

“Yes, thank you. I know it’s here somewhere.” Her sharp, bitter voice sounded foreign to her own ears.

The sprite bobbed in place before drifting closer to her, almost tentative in its approach. It dipped close, pulled back, darted to her left, then moved in again. It was, she realized, trying to look at the parchment in her hand. She snatched her hand away and hid it beneath her cloak.

The sprite dimmed, retreated, and flitted away out of sight. She felt a hint of guilt, like she’d kicked a dog and it had run away with its tail between its legs. She waited, but it did not return. 

Rhi bent to her task once more. She systematically ran her finger along the name of each book, glancing to the parchment to refresh her memory whenever the endless word strings with their minute variations blurred the details in her mind.

She’d only made it through two of the ten long shelves in this row before she heard a polite cough. The librarian stood at the end of the shelves. Several sprites trailed behind her like spilled stars, but none of them came near Rhi.

“Have you found what you were looking for?” she asked. “I’m happy to help you, if you wish.”

The parchment crumpled in Rhi’s fist. The compassion—the pity—in her expression was too much to bear. She saw straight through Rhi to the ignorance she failed to hide. Pride needled her into plucking a random book off the shelf, which she held up with a tight smile. 

“Yes. Just now.”

“I see,” the librarian said after a pause. “I will put it aside for you. I open the doors at sunrise, and you are welcome to stay as long as you like to consult the texts.”

Rhi shifted on her feet, uncertain.

“I thought people could take books with them.”

“Some books, yes. Others are part of the public memory. These are in the Clan Treasury of Knowledge.” She waved her hand, and several sprites responded to her gesture, skittering along the shelves like tossed pebbles. Her words held the cadence of a rehearsed speech, of the kind given to children. “They are always here, for everyone who needs them.”

Rhi was struck by an unaccustomed sense of shame.

“These are the references and records of all the longest lines, and span a great many years. If you give me your name, I can help you find the—"

“No.”

At Rhi’s sharp tone, the sprites on the shelves rolled back and gathered around the librarian. Some disappeared into her twinkling black curls, and some hid in and amongst the full white skirt of her long dress. The librarian’s silent, unfathomable stare made Rhi writhe, wishing so very hard that she could fade and dissolve and disappear just as easily as the sprites, as she always had done her entire life. Rhi squeezed her eyes closed and pushed with every ounce of internal strength she had, but of course it had no effect. The librarian remained, attentive as always.

“I apologize,” the librarian said quietly. “Your business is your own.”

Rhi opened her eyes, and met the guileless golden gaze.

She couldn’t remember the last time someone other than her grandmother had looked into her eyes. Sometimes she’d thrill with uncertainty when a person looked straight at her, but it was always accidental. Always a mere moment of being in their path. Rhi remained unseen and unnoticed.

“It’s not—I don’t seek my clan,” Rhi stuttered by way of excuse. “I’m not...”

The librarian made a soft noise of acknowledgment as she nodded, waiting for more, but long disuse made words impossible to find. Rhi didn’t know if there _were_ words to calm the churning storm rising within her. She didn’t know if she wanted to flee, or wanted to stay here, trapped within the librarian’s gaze.

Only when the storm threatened to rise from her throat and overwhelm her if she did not do something, anything, did she duck her head to break the spell. She stared at the random book clutched in her white-knuckled grip.

She lurched into motion and thrust the book into the librarian’s hand. Her fingers were only the length of a book from those soft hands, that luminous skin.

“Tomorrow,” Rhi rasped. “I’ll—I’ll come back tomorrow.” She didn’t know what would happen if she met the librarian’s gaze again. It was too strange; too much.

“I look forward to seeing you.” Her words, carried by the unheard melody that filled the library, travelled along Rhi’s skin and sank into her bones.

Rhi forced herself to let go of the book, and nearly ran out of the library. She burst out into the deserted town square, gulping breaths of the cold night air.

The vast memory of those with soul sprites was beyond comprehension, and Rhi was only making herself more memorable. The thought should have filled her with enough fear to make her forget about the coin. She should leave and find a different job. It wasn’t worth the risk of returning. A thief she might be, but the hardest lock was child’s play compared with a person who could see your every move.

And yet, Rhi found herself tucking into the sheltered lee of the town blacksmith’s shop. She made a dinner of the dented fruit in her pocket, licking every drop of juice from her fingers, then bedded down on the ground, close enough to feel the heat from the ever-lit forge, but far enough so none of the smithy apprentices bedded down nearby would trip over her if they went to relieve themselves in the night.

She lay on her back and stared at the night sky until she fell asleep, and saw the librarian’s glimmering black curls in the twinkling patterns of the stars.

The sky was reluctantly relinquishing black for murky blue when Rhi gave up on sleep and made her way to the library.

Her heart thumped unpleasantly as she shivered. The cold nights were the valley’s first reminder that they would also feel the frigid winter mountain winds, and her under-slept body lacked the energy to warm itself properly as soon as she left the forge fire’s heat.

It would be a long wait til sunrise, when the librarian said she opened the building. Rhi gave one library door a tug to indulge her self-pity. It rattled and pulled against its mate, exposing a silver sliver of a slide bolt visible through the crack between the doors. She released the handle and the doors thumped back into place. 

It was a joke, as far as locks went. Her little satchel had everything she needed to make short work of it. She’d been so unsettled yesterday that she hadn’t thought to check.

She bit her lip. The empty square behind her would soon fill with the people who, like the librarian, began work at sunrise. There was time, if she focused and found the book quickly. There would be no slipping past the librarian’s attention.

She made the decision swiftly before she could change her mind. She dug into her satchel for the thin metal tool, impossibly strong for its thread-like diameter. It was her greatest find in her travels.

The door rattled. Startled, she jumped back. There was the heavy thunk of the sliding bolt, and then a door cracked open.

Rhi pulled her hand from her satchel like she’d touched a burning stove as the librarian peered at Rhi with sleepy confusion, her glowing sprites sprinkling motes of light onto the grey cobblestones of the town square. Rhi’s dry tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she cringed as she waited for the inevitable question.

The librarian’s attention slid off her, past her, to the empty square behind.

Rhi held her breath, waiting. In the terrible silence, the librarian took in the pre-dawn world, gazing through Rhi like she was a pane of glass. The jangling fear coloured with disappointment.

The librarian took another step outside the library and tilted her head to the sky, mouth parting as she took in the fading stars. The little globes of her soul sprites pulsed and sprang from her hair, her chest, her arms—a flurry of sparks that danced and shot outward like the crackling halo of a bonfire. 

Stunned, Rhi whirled and spun in place to see the lights dance on the cottage roofs, bringing golden dawn to the town in advance of the sun.

Across the square among the houses, there was a shriek of terror. The librarian gasped and covered her mouth.

In an instant, the world went dark. The librarian’s golden eyes, shining like they reflected the sunrise, locked onto Rhi. Rhi's heart stopped.

The librarian leapt forward and seized Rhi by the arm and dragged her inside. Too surprised to resist, she stumbled in tow behind the librarian, who slammed and bolted the door behind them.

The librarian leaned her back against the door and her breath steamed in and out. She seemed smaller, diminished, without the ever-present movement of her sprites orbiting her. Her bottom lip trembled on a sucked in breath.

Rhi’s heart began to beat again, squeezing life back into her shaking arms and legs, pushing words onto her tongue.

“Are you—" Rhi faltered when the librarian looked at her sharply, but when she said nothing, Rhi stuttered and stumbled onward. “Are you all right? Your sprites....”

The librarian’s shining hair had dimmed to near flat black. What telltale glimmers remained could be tricks of the light. Her skin was dull and dark, when before it had radiated its own warm glow, lit by sprites within her. Rhi wanted touch the fingers twisted in her sleeve and see if they had cooled, like coals the morning after the bonfire.

The librarian released her hold on Rhi and stood straighter.

“I am well, thank you.” She shook her head and smiled slightly, brightening infinitesimally like the dawn sky. “And _you_ are very early. This is not sunrise, my friend.”

Rhi stayed silent. She had no answer to make for herself, not even an eloquently brief and untruthful one, like the librarian had offered her.

At the silence, the librarian pursed her lips and sighed. With a slow, lazy shift in hue, her skin began to glow with a subtle luminescence, and then her black curls twinkled. One little sprite sprung free. It bounced and bumped along the librarian's shoulder and down her harm, and landed upon the floor like a ball. It came to a stop at Rhi’s toes.

“They aren’t gone. Only quiet.” The librarian extended her hand, and the little sprite skittered back to her. It pulsed bright in her hand, and the shine dazzled Rhi’s eyes. “In here, I do my work as I please, and the townsfolk are accustomed to it. But out there...” She closed her hand, then opened it again. The sprite was gone. “I scare them.”

The wistfulness with which the librarian had gazed at the sky squeezed Rhi’s chest. How long since she’d been outside, and gone where she liked? Rhi couldn’t imagine being confined and trapped like this, tethered to one place by duty, by fear.

“Then they are stupid,” she blurted.

The librarian pressed her lips together, and then burst into laughter. Rhi smiled at the reaction, both pleased and embarrassed. The librarian’s laughter transformed into a shuddering yawn, and she shook her head, still grinning.

“Well, that was worth the lost hour of sleep,” she said.

“You live here?” Rhi winced to think of how close she had come to breaking in. There would have been no way out of that.

“Of course,” the librarian said easily, still smiling. “We can’t all sleep under the stars.”

Rhi nearly shied away when the librarian reached out to pluck something from her hair. It was a splinter of wood from the smith’s woodpile. The librarian grinned, and the shifting patterns of sprites hiding in her curls spelled out messages Rhi did not understand.

Rhi put a hand to her hair, which was gritty and thick with dust, and saw herself as she would look through the librarian’s eyes: Dirty, unkempt, and silent; a sullen, unlettered drifter in a room full of knowledge she couldn’t read. Too laughable to even be treated with suspicion.

This was what it was to be seen. When it was the dirt of the world looking at her, the low folk like her who stole and cheated to live, it didn’t matter what they thought. When it was her clan, who expected little of her other than the supplies she brought home, it didn’t matter what they believed.

This beautiful, shining woman, though...

“I should find my book,” Rhi mumbled.

“Let me make you tea,” the librarian said softly. “I have your book set aside, as I promised.”

Rhi had forgotten about the random book. Thankfully, the librarian had misunderstood her meaning.

“Please.” The librarian appealed to her with her large, luminous eyes appealing to Rhi as though asking a favour.

Rhi bit at her lip, torn. Tea would tamp the hunger in her belly, and get her through this agonizing day. Surrendering her pride to necessity, Rhi gave a short, jerky nod of assent.

The librarian’s smile was as bright at the cluster of soul sprites that flared to life and leapt from her, spiralling away through the air to disappear around a corner. She extended a hand to Rhi.

“My name is Lera.”

Hesitantly, Rhi took the offered hand. Her cold fingers tingled with pins and needles in Lera’s warm, firm grip.

The tea was sweet and hot, rich with fatty milk, and it warmed her to the core. She finished the cup as soon as it was cool enough to drink, and eagerly accepted a second. Little breads that tasted like honey and flowers appeared by her cup, and they were gone in an instant, and quickly replaced. Sprites clumsily dragged them to her, ferrying them along as though responding to Rhi’s own thoughts and desires. She whispered a thank you to the cluster of lights as she picked up the bread.

One sprite buzzed around the table near her cup, chasing crumbs into a little pile. When it rolled near the rim of her plate, she dropped a little crumb on the table. The sprite chased after it, nudging it with whispering touches, until it joined the tiny pile. Rhi chuckled, enchanted by the playful frolicking.

“No need to make more work.”

She looked up. Lera was watching Rhi from where she leaned against the doorway of the little kitchen that abutted the sitting room.

Rhi mumbled an apology through the bread stuffed in her mouth, having fully forgotten herself, and leaned forward to sweep the crumbs from the table into the palm of her hand. Rhi’s skin prickled with gooseflesh, when, in her haste, her hand brushed the halo of the sprite on the table. Hairs standing on end and skin tingling, Rhi stood uncertainly, awkward and large in the too-small space, aware of Lera’s attention on her as Rhi hovered in place with a handful of crumbs.

Lera waved a hand to a small bin in the kitchen. Rhi squeezed past her to dust her hands off over it. Rhi’s skin felt bright and hot under that sleepy golden gaze, as though warmed by a fire. She hadn’t ever felt this exposed, this _studied_.

“Thank you for the tea. And food.”

“Thank you for the company,” Lera said. She was perfectly still but for her clasped hands, where she brushed her fingertips along the back of her other hand.

Rhi imagined those fingertips running over the back of her own hand. Another shiver ran through her.

It was growing difficult to remember why she was here, now that her belly was full and the desperate need to fill her empty purse seemed far away from the cozy room lit by this woman’s golden, glowing soul. Her attention kept drifting to the full, dark lips that curved in a sweet and kind smile that seemed for Rhi alone.

“What’s your name?” Lera asked.

“Rhi.”

It was the sound of her own name, unfamiliar in her own voice, that threw cold water on her thoughts.

Lera’s easy smile faded away into puzzlement as Rhi took two steps back, as far as she could get from Lera in the tiny kitchen. She scrubbed her eyes with her fists, trying to figure out where her mind had gone to give her name away so easily.

“I should, um—“ Rhi cleared her throat, forcing out the words as she shook her head. “I should look at the book.”

Lera blinked once, twice. Her puzzlement gave way to concern, and then it was gone again, covered by a pleasant smile. She straightened and dropped her hands to her sides.

“Yes, of course.”

Rhi followed in her wake as Lera led them back to the library, out of the comfortable room back into reality, cursing herself seven shades a fool.

Rhi took the book from Lera and wound her way back through the stacks and stacks of tomes, like a dog with a bone finding a corner to gnaw away in secret.

She sat on the floor at the end of the row and pressed her head and back against the stone wall. She closed her eyes and breathed for a minute, in and out, until her heart stopped trying to explode in her chest, and the pricking heat behind her eyes stopped threatening to escape her control.

Sniffing, she swiped her hand across her eyes and tossed one side of her cloak back over her shoulder. She reached into the satchel to pull out the much-abused parchment with her target title written upon it. She inserted the decoy book back into the empty shelf space where it had lived, and restarted her tedious search where she’d left off the day before.

Her eyes were aching, and her back and neck stiff, before she found the single book she was looking for. With a muttered curse, she pulled the book from the shelf and dropped to sit on the ground again, rolling her head back to stretch out her muscles with a groan of relief. She picked up the book again and carefully compared the lettering to her paper, just to be certain. When she confirmed it was correct, she glared at the book.

“You are a pain in my ass,” she told it.

She snorted with laughter. She’d spoken more in the past hours than she had in the past months. Now, she was even talking to books. 

It was heavy and old, and the leather creaked when she opened it, dry and tight with disuse. She let the book fall open to a random page. She huffed out a breath.

Rhi couldn’t read, but like everyone, she knew the clan crests, and the trailing branches that shaped a clan lineage. Every one had their own, some obscure and nearly forgotten, but for the scrawled lines on some leather, like the one her grandmother kept rolled up like a treasure in the bottom of a chest.

And some crests were well known to all. Rhi ran her fingers over the red and yellow of the highest of the three guiding clan.

When the lord had hired her for this job, Rhi had felt the cold and hungry power in the invisible grasp. She’d assumed it was the usual pedantic delight bastards took in asserting power over those weaker than them, and she’d ignored the passing threat because the money was good enough, and she thought him a fool. He was a nobody in a nobody clan that had long settled to the bottom of the hierarchy, and he could waste his coin on whatever he wanted—even library books.

The magical and special folk were meant to be registered, documented, and trained, particularly those whose power held such potential for abuse. People like Lera, whose soul sprites gave her a vast mind that lived outside herself, seeing and hearing and remembering everything they experienced.

Rhi’s ability to slip past the attention of others was also meant to be registered, with her obligation to ethical practice sworn upon a binding spell when she was thirteen. Such a spell would steal a bit of her function with each transgression, and by now she would have been as dull as a turnip with all the transgressing she’d been doing. But, her family had a loose relationship with those who considered themselves to be in charge, and never gotten around to such matters of ‘unimportant paperwork,’ as her mother called it. Turned out that the ability to slide past notice was quite helpful to avoid calling attention to such matters.

Unlicensed skills like hers were quite handy when trying to keep body and soul together, for not everyone in this world could be so lucky as to be in a rich clan, or to have skills like Lera’s that were valued enough to be given food and shelter, and whatever they needed. But unlicensed as she was, as much as she slipped around and past all the laws to survive, she’d never harmed anyone.

She’d sensed no such ethical restraint in the clutch of the lord. There was no tattoo on the lord’s neck that would mark him as registered and known to the clan magisters. She’d been able to smell his raw desire for control. Her petty thievery was nothing in comparison.

Rhi shut the book and shoved it back onto the shelf, and then scrambled back until her back pressed to the shelf opposite. The book was back amongst its brethren, but she swore she could see her fingerprints upon the spine, and that the brown leather shone with a new lustre that marked it as altered.

She knew enough of the jockeying clans, and how the lineages worked. It had been the subject on everyone’s lips from the plains to the mountains—who would assert their claim and fill the void left in the wake of the suspiciously coincidental death of three guiding clan magisters who were attending the summer’s annual gathering?

This book, edited to insert the lord’s name somewhere in the guiding clan lineage, could weave him a new future. He wouldn’t be from a nobody clan any longer; he could loudly assert a rightful claim. 

There was more at stake than a sack of gold. If she failed, he would remember her, well and truly, and that would be hard to slip past, especially if he was seeking her out for some revenge for her failure. And if she succeeded, no clan magister would want his dirty secret alive and out there, a loose end in his plan.

And it was a good plan. No one would question the validity of the Clan Treasury of Knowledge, especially with someone like Lera as its steward. 

The soul sprite folk valued truth, history, and knowledge. They were honest people.

She couldn’t slip out of Lera’s notice, and so she would see every single moment of Rhi’s petty betrayal. She would remember every moment of it, forever. A permanent etched record of Rhi’s failure to live the decent, ethical, honest life that Lera lived.

If only she had kissed Lera. Stolen it, rather than left it to linger as an idea in the air, unborn. If she had to walk away from this entire mess, to hustle for little jobs to find enough money to help them survive the winter months, then she wished she had one memory of her own to treasure, while she looked over her shoulder in fear wondering when a knowing gaze might meet her own, with malice rather than kindness.

Rhi’s head drooped back against the shelves as she groaned, and she dropped her hands into her lap.

The light shifted on her cloak, moving the shadows of the wrinkled rough woollen fabric and tinted her skin with a golden hue. She lifted her head. A sprite bobbed in front of her, weaving like a drunken bumblebee as it hovered in place.

She gave it an unhappy smile.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

The sprite bobbed closer, and then dipped abruptly, and landed in her hand. Rhi held her breath as the sprite snuggled into the hollow of her palm, soft as a wispy ball of cotton fluff. It weighed nothing at all, and gave her the impression of a pup on its back wriggling and rolling with pleasure. 

Happy for the distraction from her misery, she shifted to unlatch her cloak and shrug it off her shoulders. She’d grown stifled and sweaty under her heavy wool. She moved carefully so as not to disturb the little sprite who seemed so very content to stay with her, and then settled to lean her head against the shelf. 

Though she knew there was no sound, the pulsing light of the sprite seemed to make a reassuring hum that soothed her, and as her distress faded, the exhaustion and ache of her body rose to the front. She slumped and lay to her side on the floor, head upon her gathered cloak, as the sprite explored her fingers, the web and curve of her thumb. Rhi shivered and closed her eyes, feeling the movement like whisper-soft fingertips trailing along her skin, following her life line to the crease of her wrist and settling over the sensitive skin where her pulse beat hot and strong.

A heat was spreading within her, and a heaviness between her legs that throbbed with her heartbeat and in time with the sprite’s pulsing golden light. She shifted so her sleeve rode up and exposed her forearm. She bit her lip as the sprite shimmered and crept along the line of her vein, leaving a tingling trail on her skin and a shameful excitement building between her tightly squeezed thighs.

Footsteps. A quick intake of breath. Rhi jerked upright. Her sudden movement startled the sprite away from her, sending it dancing in the air like a dust mote.

Mouth dry and blood pounding, she looked up. From the end of the stacks, Lera stared at where Rhi lay, flushed and sweating, scattered on the ground like a broken scarecrow. Lera’s eyes—the same gold as her sprites—were shining so brightly.

“I’m sorry. My thoughts wandered.”

Lera spoke so quietly that Rhi could barely hear her. The sparkling glimmers in her hair dimmed and shone in slow waves, like the cooling coals of a dying fire fanned by a whispering breeze. Lera wet her lips, and their damp shine looked like tiny sprites lighting her mouth.

Soul sprites appeared from the book stacks, zipping from various parts of the library, to circle about her and nestle into her hair with a brief flare before dimming and melding into the slowly shifting pattern. One little sprite, weaving near the floor at Lera’s feet, darted closer to Rhi, and then away, circling around Lera’s legs to peek from behind her long skirts like a shy child. She wondered if it was the same one; the one whose brief touch had made the fumbling encounters of her distant past, before she’d disappeared into silence, pale in comparison.

Lera lowered herself down to the floor, clutching at a shelf, her expression twisted up. Her dress pooled around her like water.

“I’m used to being alone. I let myself fill the space when no one is here. Old Toma comes once a week, and a few others from the town once in a while, but otherwise, it’s just me.” Lera squeezed her eyes shut, and her lip trembled when she drew a breath. “I transcribe, I archive, I think. I.... I suppose I’ve spent too much time alone with my books, that I wouldn’t realize it wasn’t just a daydream until I’d...” She covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry. Rhi, I’m sorry.”

Rhi unconsciously lifted her hand to her own mouth in echo, brushing her fingers against her lips. They were warm and full, like she was burning with thirst.

A gorgeous woman who sparkled like the very sun, with thoughts that filled the air, whose daydreams included Rhi, and touching her with those whisper-soft fingers...

“Don’t be.”

Lera lifted her head, her sprites shifting and glowing with a deep gold that gave her a faint aura. Rhi haltingly stumbling for words.

“I’m not very—I suppose I’ve forgotten how to—to share mine. My thoughts. I wish sometimes they were...” She ran a hand through her own lank, dull hair with a pained groan, clutching at the roots like she could pull the words out of her head. She freed her fingers and gestured to Lera’s sparkling hair, and the sprites that huddled around her like little chicks. “I wish they were like yours. Beautiful. Free.”

A sprite hiding around Lera’s skirts spiralled up and around her body, then darted towards Rhi’s hand. Lera shook her head sharply, and the sprite flew back to her, snuggling into a spot just below Lera’s ear at the hinge of her jaw. Its light pulsed with a mad, flickering beat that matched Rhi’s heart.

“Is that the one you use to keep an eye on me?” Rhi chuckled, nervous energy making her silly.

“Oh, no,” Lera said quietly. “You have my full attention.”

Rhi’s heart leapt, kicking in her chest almost painfully. This was someone who could actually see her. Not just the thief, but the person. And she was still looking.

“What does that look like?”

There was a sudden stillness, like time paused and slowed, and then Lera slowly released her held breath.

The golden glow rose like the sun, shining through her skin, and Rhi could feel the rising, humming music through her teeth; sprites leapt from her hair, her skin, her arms and body, darting like a cloud of tiny butterflies, dazzling in their multitude.

And then, like a candle blown out, they were gone.

All that remained were the simmering, warm pinpricks that dotted Lera’s curls, and a slow shifting glow just beneath her skin, as though she were lit by a fire far within.

“It’s why we spend our time mostly alone,” Lera said after a moment of silence. “It’s exhausting to be so small.”

“Then don’t be.”

Lera looked suddenly shy, vulnerable.

“I’m not used to being seen. Not fully.”

Rhi got to her hands and knees and crawled over to Lera, closing the long distance between them. She folded herself awkwardly next to her, trying not to disturb her beautiful dress from its elegant drape, but wanting to be near her, and to try and feel the warmth of her shine. She stared at her bent legs, her body sharp and skinny next to Lera’s round, soft curves.

“Neither am I,” Rhi said. She gathered her bravery, and met Lera’s gaze. “But... I’m glad we can see each other.”

Lera’s golden eyes shimmered, wide and full. One little sprite from her hair wound around them, then up through the space between them, and hovered uncertainly before it settled in the hollow of Rhi’s throat. She was flooded by a sudden knee-bending desire.

Rhi leaned over and kissed Lera.

The flare of light was blinding through her closed eyelids, erasing all thoughts of books, gold, winter, hunger—anything but this moment here and now, where she was... 

Where she was happy.

An endless time later, she opened her eyes. A thousand shattered mirror shards of light coated them both, twinkling and sparkling with heat, kindness and wonder. Slowly, with a kaleidoscope of shifting light, they resolved into the familiar puffs of the soul sprites she’d become accustomed to seeing about Lera. Rhi smiled as they settled again around their mistress, comfortable and glowing gold.

“You’re not afraid of me,” Lera said. “Are you?”

Rhi shook her head.

“No.” She glanced at the shelves, at the book that promised trouble, but that had brought her here to this unexpected place. She looked back at Lera. “There are many things to fear in the world. You are not one of them.”

“What do you fear, Rhi?”

Rhi looked down to her hand, balled tight into a fist, gently cradled in Lera’s hands. She cracked her fist open, her aching fingers gone bloodless and unfeeling at the joints. In her palm, the scrap of parchment, sweaty and crushed.

Lera took it from her carefully. She smoothed the parchment out on her thigh without taking her other hand from Rhi’s shaking, empty fist. Her brows knit, full lips mouthing the name.

“I don’t understand,” Lera said. “Why hide that you seek this information? I told you, the knowledge is for everyone.”

“Because I came to take it.”

Rhi’s confession tumbled out of her in slow, halting fragments. Rhi struggled at the best of time to find words, but it was all the harder with Lera’s fingertips drawing circles on the inside of her wrist, her palm, and tracing the length of her fingers, both a distracting and reassuring sensation. She confessed the aims of her employment, and her suspicions.

“I’m sorry,” Rhi said miserably when she finished.

“He means to rewrite history, hm?” Lera chuckled, smiling so that her teeth gleamed white against the dark of her lips.

“Don’t laugh,” Rhi whispered. “I think he’s dangerous.”

“Oh, I have no doubt,” Lera agreed with another laugh. “Greedy, power-hungry men often are. But he is uninformed, and overestimates his reach. It is much harder to graft himself into a clan tree than he thinks.”

“I could have taken it and returned it with lies. No one would know.” Rhi said, her pride pricked unexpectedly, as though her abilities had been insulted. Then, remembering that she had been the one trying to steal from Lera, she dropped her gaze, shame-faced. “If it were someone other than you.”

“It would always be me. Or another like me.”

“What?”

Lera swept her free hand to encompass the library as a whole, and her sprites spread outward like she had cast them into the air. They fanned outward, slowing as they travelled, and then rolling to a stop. They turned the entire library into a twinkling galaxy of stars.

“ _This_ is not the Clan Treasure of Knowledge.” She smiled at Rhi. “ _I_ am the Treasury.“

Rhi shook her head, not understanding. 

“These books are transcriptions. They exist so that everyone can access the information when they need, but _I_ hold the knowledge. I am the steward of the true information. If so much as a word changed on any page I have written, I would know.”

“You... Write them?”

“Yes, and maintain them. Should the building burn down and all this is lost, I can fill another. There aren’t many of my folk, but we are collectors by nature, especially of knowledge. We are the ones who have taken these stewardships over the years. Clan leaders know where to find the real source of their histories and their knowledge,” she tapped her temple, “but given that we are relatively private people—more by circumstance than choice, admittedly—it’s not commonly known.”

Rhi looked around the room and the hundreds of twinkling sprites casting their golden light on hundreds, _thousands_ of books. Could all this knowledge be contained in one mind?

“What if you forget?”

“I can’t forget. I never forget. It’s how we are.” Her gaze travelled over Rhi’s face. “I remember everything I see and hear.” Her fingertips lightly stroked the centre of Rhi’s palm. “Everything I feel. Everything I learn.”

The frank inspection and soft touch revived the heat to Rhi’s body. Lera had her face, her name. Rhi was now a part of the Clan Treasury of Knowledge; recorded, remembered.

“There is nothing to learn about me,” Rhi murmured, hypnotized by Lera’s fingers trailing up along the inside of her wrist, her forearm. She let herself be pulled nearer as Lera’s fingers slid under the edge of the rolled up sleeve to find the sensitive, vulnerable skin in the crook of her elbow. She shivered.

“There is everything to learn.”

Lera’s mouth was so close that her words whispered across Rhi’s trembling lips.

“And I want to know it all.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was working on this and talking through ideas to develop the character of the librarian and little soul sprites, and my kid overheard and was totally obsessed with the idea of "light bees that do your bidding and feel your feelings," and wanted to know all about them and what they looked like (which forced me to come up with some answers!). He went away and came back with this picture, which is far too charming not to share. So here you go - a little soul sprite in love.
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